protonscr

Uneven network load and low download speed

steamclosed
ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux#6126 · opened 2019-03-06 by OneAdder · updated 2023-12-23 · 56 comments · github
OOneAdder 2019-03-06 github

System information

  • Steam client version (date): Feb 18 2019
  • Distribution: Debian Buster
  • Opted into Steam client beta?: Yes
  • Have you checked for system updates?: Yes

Description:

I upgraded my Steam client to Feb 18 build and faced a severe issue.
The download speed is extremely low (0-100 Kb/s). Before the upgrade the speed was 10-15 Mb/s (on January build).
When I monitor the network load, I can see that it is extremely uneven (sequence of peaks, the third row in the screenshot).
screenshot_20190306_185439

This issue appeared right after I upgraded from Jan 4 2019 build to Feb 18 2019.
I tried using beta version as well, the issue is present.
Perhaps, it is connected with this issue.

P.S. Sorry for two issues in a row.

Kkisak-valve maintainer 2019-03-06 github

Hello @OneAdder, please copy <steam install dir>/logs/content_log.txt to a gist and include a link in this issue report.

Possibly related to #5907.

OOneAdder 2019-03-06 github

Here is the log.

Ttonysh3 2019-03-07 github

Have same issue
Ubuntu 18.04
Steam version: Feb 18 2019

My download speed is 100 bytes but when CS GO download its modifications it was normal(700 kb/s)
I try to reinstall steam and system, nothing changed.
Here is log.
https://gist.github.com/tonysh3/a5b5b10452f8467cc618204c688230b6

Ttonysh3 2019-03-08 github

I don`t know what happened, download was 100 bytes/s for 1-2 minute and now speed increased to normal 800kb/s.
Here is log which includes yesterday and today launches, if you need this.
https://gist.github.com/tonysh3/180bd6903b70c3f21ae4489bc8ad2e5c

OOneAdder 2019-03-11 github

Is there any progress or some idea about what might be causing it? I tried purging Steam and reinstalling it from scratch, the result is still the same. I cannot find any workaround to solve the issue.

Ttonysh3 2019-03-12 github

I still have this issue. Download start with 1 second 500kb speed, than it became 3-4 kb/s, it increases from time to time a bit at the end of 10 mb donwload it became 50kb/s. Still have this peaks at download.
Снимок экрана от 2019-03-12 19-03-19
Снимок экрана от 2019-03-12 19-17-06
Снимок экрана от 2019-03-12 19-04-13

Ttonysh3 2019-03-12 github

I don`t understand. Start downloading game 1 minute after taking screenshots above.
Speed is normal without any peaks
Снимок экрана от 2019-03-12 19-28-07

TThomasStegbuchner 2019-03-13 github

try disabling ipv6 on your system

OOneAdder 2019-03-13 github

Wow, that helped. @ThomasStegbuchner Thank you very much!
@kisak-valve Could you fix this issue with IPv6? I have to disable it systemwide to download something. It's not a perfect workaround.

Ttonysh3 2019-03-14 github

ipv6 disabled didn`t work out for me
same speed like before

Bbcrochet 2019-03-14 github

I am (was?) seeing the same thing. Once I disabled ipv6 (sudo sh -c 'echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv6/conf/eth0/disable_ipv6') downloads immediately started up again.

OOneAdder 2019-03-14 github

@bcrochet Interesting whether this issue appears randomly under both Debian and Ubuntu or under Debian only. If the second, I think it could be solved by investigating the difference in how ipv6 works under both systems

EEmanem 2019-03-19 github

Hi, I also suffer from this issue. The only workaround is to disable IPv6 - but this is very suboptimal.
I've also opened a discussion on the forums here: https://steamcommunity.com/app/221410/discussions/0/3247565033758861331/

I'm running on Ubuntu 18.04 with HWE.

Bbvn13 2019-03-31 github

the same issue on Fedora 29

EEmanem 2019-04-03 github

In general my IPv6 works fine, perhaps is the API Valve are using that may be not performant?
Perhaps they're using async-io on Linux (instead of epoll)?

SSeil0 2019-04-16 github

Hi, I also got this issues, but disabling IPv6 doesn't relay solve the problem. The download speed toggles between 0 kb/s and 6 mb/s. log

Bb4ux1t3 2019-04-17 github

Having this issue as well. Manjaro Linux, Steam version Feb 18, 2019, API v018, Package Version 1550534751.

No IPv6 on network and disabled in OS. Speed tests consistent at 45-80 Mbps.

DeepinScreenshot_select-area_20190417175716

That's a pretty significant difference. Any telemetry we can pick up in Steam to help diagnose?

Mmsrb 2019-04-27 github

I can confirm that disabling IPv6 on my Fedora 29 machine "fixed" the problem.

Hh1z1 2019-04-27 github

You can as a test try

ip6tables -I INPUT -m state --state NEW -j LOG --log-prefix "valvetest:"
ip6tables -I INPUT -j REJECT
ip6tables -I FORWARD -j REJECT
ip6tables -I OUTPUT -m state --state NEW -j LOG --log-prefix "valvetest:"
ip6tables -I OUTPUT -j REJECT

If you see hosts getting logged it's posible somethings retrying ipv6 because it's not either honoring a reset or, more likely, waiting for ipv6 to timeout.

Assuming you're not using v6,

ip -6 route get 2002::

Should return network is unreachable or some such.

Vvinzv 2019-05-02 github

Can confirm this problem with openSUSE Tumbleweed.
Disabling IPv6 did not help.

MMalteJoe 2019-05-08 github

I have the same issue in Ubuntu 19.04 and disabling ipv6 did nothing. However, changing my download region to Netherlands instead of Germany made my download speeds go from ~50KB/s to 5 MB/s (which I would expect from my connection).

content_log.txt

Ssunmachine 2019-05-23 github

Linux Mint 19.1 Cinnamon, 4.15.0-50-generic.
Disabling IPv6 did help immensely. 20 KB/s to 46.4 MB/s.

Ttonysh3 2019-05-24 github

After steam update speed is better but it is not as high and constant as if we disable ipv6
These commands work for me
sysctl -w net.ipv6.conf.all.disable_ipv6=1 sysctl -w net.ipv6.conf.default.disable_ipv6=1

EEmanem 2019-05-26 github

After steam update speed is better but it is not as high and constant as if we disable ipv6
These commands work for me
sysctl -w net.ipv6.conf.all.disable_ipv6=1 sysctl -w net.ipv6.conf.default.disable_ipv6=1

Same here - the update made it better, but with IPv4 I get to use my 1 Gbps at full speed...

Ssunmachine 2019-05-27 github

Ammending previous post: adjusting IPv6 settings no longer works. Back to slow speeds.

Bbcrochet 2019-07-01 github

@bcrochet Interesting whether this issue appears randomly under both Debian and Ubuntu or under Debian only. If the second, I think it could be solved by investigating the difference in how ipv6 works under both systems

I'm on Fedora. And I've seen it across Fedora 29/30, and Fedora 30 Silverblue.

Ddpatou 2019-07-05 github

Hello there,

This might not be a match with the issues that everyone is experiencing here, but I had the "slow download speed by short bursts" using ubuntu 18.04

It turned out the steam library I was using was on an ntfs drive (dual boot system so some of my drives are ntfs, the only with room left in it was) mount. As per the first answer right here https://gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/253695/abnormally-slow-speeds-downloading-from-steam I changed the fstab config of this mount to async (was sync). After unmounting and remounting, the problem was fixed (comparable download/update speeds as windows).

For the record, I do have dnsmasq installed (since i'm using it for other purposes). I didn't touch any IPV6 conf.

I hope it helps anyone (although I doubt it's the cause of most people posting here issues).

EEmanem 2019-07-06 github

It seems the same issue resurfaced again. After disabling IPv6 download speeds seems to have picked up. Ubuntu 18.04 LTS with HWE 4.18.0-25-generic.

Ssodd 2019-07-11 github

I have same problem with download speed. If i disable IPv6 i can reach maximum downloading speed.

OS: Ubuntu 18.04
kernel: 4.15.0-54-generic
Steam Runtime Version:  jenkins-steam-runtime-beta-release_0.20190320.2
EEmanem 2019-07-14 github

Had to resort disabling IPv6 to get full download speeds (1 Gbps)... Weird, I thought it was fixed some weeks back?
Ubuntu 18.04 with HWE.

Eehudnoleft 2019-09-13 github

As of today this problem still exists. I'm on 4.16.18-galliumos.
Turning off ipv6 did correct the problem.
I followed this guide to do it: https://easyengine.io/tutorials/linux/disable-ipv6/

Good luck!

Rreneissancek 2019-09-28 github

@ehudnoleft solution fixed it for me on Ubuntu 18.04

EEmanem 2019-10-02 github

Unfortunately the issue still persist. Valve should give us the option to turn off IPV6 at app level instead of having to manually disable at OS level...

EEmanem 2019-11-10 github

Thanks - is there any update on this?

@kisak-valve any way to disable IPv6 from Steam client as a workaround instead of disabling it system-wide?
Any way to set socket creation as IPv4 stream instead of IPv6 (i.e. force specify AF_INET instead of AF_INET6 in the domain parameter) when steam creates a connection?

Bbcrochet 2019-11-12 github

Thanks - is there any update on this?

@kisak-valve any way to disable IPv6 from Steam client as a workaround instead of disabling it system-wide?
Any way to set socket creation as IPv4 stream instead of IPv6 (i.e. force specify AF_INET instead of AF_INET6 in the domain parameter) when steam creates a connection?

This seems to be fixed in the beta client at least. I would give that a shot.

EEmanem 2019-11-13 github

This seems to be fixed in the beta client at least. I would give that a shot.

Not really? Download speed of patches was around 300 KiB/s...?
My Steam version is 7th Nov build...

Ppralhadsapre 2019-11-14 github

Disabling IPv6 with the following commands worked for me on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS

sudo sysctl -w net.ipv6.conf.default.disable_ipv6=1
sudo sysctl -w net.ipv6.conf.all.disable_ipv6=1
sudo sysctl -w net.ipv6.conf.lo.disable_ipv6=1
sudo systemctl restart networking

I was getting abysmal speeds of 100 Kbps before, after that it spiked up to 7 Mbps.

EEmanem 2019-11-15 github

If only there was an easy way to LD_PRELOAD the steam client, I could pre load a library with a modified socket API to fake the system doesn't support IPv6...

AArbitrate3280 2019-12-02 github

Just wanted to say that this issue it's still alive and well.

Disabling Ipv6 returns downloads to the expected speed. The issue is that I need to have Ipv6 enabled, so this workaround is not very useful for my situation.

EEmanem 2020-02-15 github

Hi Valve (@kisak-valve), this has been open for almost a year.

Having the workaround to always disable IPv4 when downloading a big game/update is ok for some months - but now, after such long time, could you at least provide the option to switch off IPv6 (only use IPv4) usage for the Steam client?

Thanks!

EEmanem 2020-03-10 github

Hi, any update about this ask?
Would it be possible to implement it?

EEmanem 2020-06-02 github

Update: looks like things are now working ok (I'm on latest beta) and can use 100% my bandwidth without disabling IPv6.

EEmanem 2020-06-15 github

@kisak-valve should we close this?

Kkisak-valve maintainer 2020-06-15 github

Is anyone else still experiencing this issue on an up to date system?

Ssodd 2020-06-20 github

ipv6 seems to works if you are on latest beta

Kkisak-valve maintainer 2020-08-01 github

Closing per recent comments.

Bbaumi1337 2020-10-19 github

Unfortunately I'm still experiencing this behavior. I tested OpenSUSE TW and Leap, Manjaro and Ubuntu 20.04 all of these four distributions had this problem although all systems were up to date and the steam beta was enabled.

When IPv6 is enabled I only reach download speeds around 15-600 Kb/s even though I got a 100 Mb connection.

SSeil0 2020-11-30 github

I'm also experiencing this behavior. I'm not sure since when exactly it's happening again, but i'm sure it was not there 2/3 months ago. Disabling IPv6 solves the Problem.

EEmanem 2020-12-01 github

Working ok on Ubuntu 20.04.1 - Steam beta.

Mmsschw 2021-03-28 github

Experiencing this on archlinux in steam and steam beta. Disabling ipv6 fixes download issues.

UUserCommon 2021-08-28 github

Experiencing this on arch and ipv6 disabling not working for me.

IIncognitux 2021-12-10 github

Experiencing this on Kubuntu 20.04 (Ubuntu 20.04.3 LTS x86_64). Kernel: 5.11.0-41-generic . Disabling IPv6 fixes this problem.

Sshaunrd0 2021-12-12 github

Also seeing this on Kubuntu 20.04. Disabled IPv6 and all is good now, download speeds are normal again.

Linux 5.13.0-22-generic #22~20.04.1-Ubuntu SMP Tue Nov 9 15:07:24 UTC 2021 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

KKassabNova 2022-03-16 github

I'm on Ubuntu 20.04. Got a peak of 133Kb/s. Disabled IPv6, but still slow.

Xxadips 2023-12-23 github

If anyone stumbles upon here currently experiencing slow download issues: https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux/issues/10248